The Real World Began on Seventh Avenue

As the tiny little plane climbed though the clouds, I could see the Altimeter inch its way closer and closer to 5,000 feet; that’s almost a mile high. From the Co-Pilots chair, I was filled with tension as I looked at both sides of the plane to finally see the coastline of Long Island on our left extending out into the horizon in front of us. The chalky beach line could barely be seen. We were smack in the middle of Long Island Sound flying out to sea. The squeaky seat and flimsy seat belt were probably the originals from 1957, when the Piper Tri-Pacer first saw use. The instrumentation was also original, and the canvas skin covering the plane also looked original, with a few rips to prove it. The noise in the cockpit was high, along with a slight smell of gasoline, since we were almost sitting on top of the engine. My friend, the pilot was also an original; a World War II Army Air Corps veteran who flew B-17’s over Germany, and considered the four seat Tri-Pacer a toy. Although, we could have been flying one of his other planes, the Beech Twin Bonanza for example, learning to fly according to him had to be done on a simple airplane. The Tri-Pacer was so simple, that to start it, a man basically pushed the propeller with his hands, after we yelled, “Clear!”

At 5,000 feet he told me to grab the controls and pull the wheel in order to continue the climb. In what felt like a few seconds we reached 5,500 feet, and he began his lesson. He carefully explained each instrument’s function, the way to turn, ascend and descend, and the radio and compass. After each explanation he asked if I understood what each instrument was for, and in the end he calmly proclaimed I was almost an expert. He then told me to take the wheel and put my feet on the rudder so I could fly us both back to Republic Airport, our point of departure some 30 minutes before. “Are you crazy,” I said. “I’ve been up here only 30 minutes, how can you expect me to know where Republic is, or land this thing without us getting killed?” “Don’t worry, this airplane is very forgiving. It can fly by itself. Let me show you!” Grabbing the controls again, he said, “Get ready!” With a smile, he put the plane in a steep dive and then he released all the controls and watched me melt into pure fear and shock as we nose dived towards the water below. But, just as he said, the plane somehow leveled itself at around 3,800 feet and I noticed how it began to cruise by itself. The drop from 5,500 feet to 3,800 feet was steep, but without autopilot or any interference from us, the plane flew by itself maintaining a level flight with the horizon. He then looked at me and said, “You see, this is safer than a car!” Thus commenced my first flying lesson.

That beautiful sunny afternoon, I found myself zigzagging in the clouds over Long Island in a Volkswagen Beatle with wings, thanks to the daring of a very wise, kind, generous and entrepreneurial man. My dream to fly a plane under my control, something I had wished for since I was a child in Cuba, and had done only in my flying Bicycle dreams over Chaparra, came true when I was 20. I learned to fly that little plane based on daytime Visual Flight Rules (VFR) and practiced landings and take offs in tiny dirt landing strips and airports in Long Island, Connecticut and Up-state New York; airports that no longer exist because they are now considered dangerous, or too antiquated. Then, when the day came to move on to nighttime Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) I enthusiastically went to the FAA doctor, who tested me and we found that I was colorblind. And, colorblind people cannot obtain IFR certification because night flying relies on color-coded airport lights and signals, whose improper identification could mean the difference between life and death. I was to be a fair-weather, daytime only pilot. No night time trips, or complex navigation stunts based on fancy instruments or “blind” routes in the event of bad weather. I was very disappointed, not so much because of my limitations as a pilot, but because up to that point I was not aware I was colorblind, and I did not realize that the way I saw the world was not the same as that of most people around me. The idea others could see an entire range of colors that I could not see, depressed me. I also began to understand why many friends often told me I wore uncoordinated clothes, and why I was always wrong when I thought something was green, red, or orange, or a combination thereof. As a result of my colorblindness, three years after I learned to fly, I dropped it, feeling concerned that if one day I was caught in a daytime storm, the ones whose thick clouds eliminate visibility and force pilots to navigate based on IFR rules, I would end in a deadly accident.

But before my colorblindness was discovered, I flew with great gusto, and thanks to my friend, what is for many an expensive hobby, did not cost me a penny. The reason this happened was because we needed to get to know each other, and we had a powerful link uniting us. The plane in essence was the perfect vehicle that allowed this experienced pilot and I to become friends. And so it was that during countless Saturday mornings, I accumulated flying hours, attended Ground School, cleaned the plane, learned to navigate, learned about the clouds, fuel efficiency and mixtures, landing strategies in high winds, proper radio etiquette, and memorized the locations of navigation beacons and FAA regulations. The powerful link that united this man and I, was my mother.

The pilot who graciously adopted me as a protégé, the World War II pilot, the man from the greatest generation that ever lived, was Colonel David Tandoff, a Jewish boy that grew up and rose from the dirty crime infested immigrant streets of 1930’s Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, to admirable heights in the business world. A man who knew what he saw, and said it like it was. A man, who was full of human frailties, but had more goodness to his credit than most of us. David was the type of man you either loved or hated with passion. He was a Jew who embodied many Cuban character traits, (or perhaps its that Cubans embody many Jewish traits?) and in the end when you were mad at him, by some incredible magic, he would win you over again. He was capable of arguing or socializing with the highest academicians, the wealthiest business people, as well as the most common worker, or poor uneducated person in the totem pole, without ill will or discomfort. He was a highly instinctive man, who walked around naked; that is with David, you got what you saw. A man from the old school who despised mediocrity and double talk, worked hard, recognized the hidden potential of most people, and was not afraid to say “fuck you” or “you’re an asshole” or “I’ll break your neck” if someone deserved it.

Those who did not like David, called him a “Garmento” in reference to his work in the fashion industry, and his slightly bombastic and very New York Jewish admiration for “personal trophies” like thick gold chains, expensive diamond encrusted watches, unusual rings, Louis Vuitton wallets, expensive Italian Shoes, Gucci briefcases, expensive cologne’s, especially fitted Hong Kong shirts, British suits, extravagant car, and manicured finger nails. During a time when the average American businessman was considered well dressed with $500.00 worth of clothes and accessories, Colonel David Tandoff on a daily basis wore between $5,000 and $8,000 worth of clothes and “personal trophies”. By the time I met him he was overweight and suffering from diabetes, but he was strong as a bull, and full of energy. His wartime pictures showed a handsome slim man in an aviator uniform with a chest full of medals, and with the look of a man full of conviction and courage.

Everywhere we went, everyone knew him, or knew of him. As a pilot, he looked the part with leather aviator jacket, Rayban glasses, khaki pants and sometimes sporting a white silk scarf with his Lacoste polo shirt (at a time when few people knew of them). He had so many uncollected favors, that often upon landing in some obscure airport, the airport manager would refuse to receive payment for parking our plane, and we were treated to lunch by FAA staffers and other pilots, just so they could talk to him and hear his endless stories about all types of esoteric aeronautical things and historic characters, like Hap Arnold, Juan Trippe and Dwight Eisenhower which he personally knew. Quietly, I’d listen, watch and learn how easily and often clumsily, he successfully moved from one situation to another. For he did not care if he was graceful, clumsy, rude, or polished; he was an “in your face” kind of guy, who placed high value on personal interaction, rather than pre-planned meetings, or orchestrated events. His confidence radiated like sunlight. In a meeting, the thing that concerned him was the outcome, and the rest he managed to improvise. He once told me that during the war he beat the odds so many times, evading death and coming back when he was not supposed to, that he knew anything else in life was within his reach. This realization seems to have taken away all his fears, giving him a joy for life that was contagious.

Colonel David Tandoff met my mother in the fashion industry, when she worked as a pattern maker for a moderate dress manufacturer, and he was the partner of a well-established competing company. David, a hands on type of guy, was not happy running a multi-million dollar company, he also had his hands in the design, merchandising, and sales of the line, traveling extensively throughout the country making sure all his clients saw his face at least three times as year. A man, who although having “Garmento” traits, did not have an inch of femininity, could and probably had the pick of the most voluptuous and available women on 7th Avenue. But, having gone through an ugly divorce was unhappy and unable to rekindle his interest in women. However, David fell deeply in love with my mother on sight, hired her away, and courted her for a year before she allowed the relationship to evolve into a love affair that lasted more than nine years. There was never a day in which this man failed to say, “I love you” to my mother, and showered her with gifts and affection. His greatest desire was to marry her, and he announced this to the world unashamedly. He adored her. David was the most romantic Jewish man I’ve ever met, and the most generous and understanding man my brother and I knew, while our father was estranged from us due to the divorce. David taught me to fly in order to become my friend, and make my mother happy. He succeeded in both things, and later on, he ended up teaching me things about human nature I never expected to learn, and for which I am to this day grateful. But, I have to admit that most of what he taught me, I was not able to absorb and understand until many years later.

My mother traumatized by the Cuba experience, by her family, by a divorce, and by the hard life of a single mother, took a long time to accept that this man was genuine. She had gone through a period where Cuban exiled men had courted her, many of these men were nice decent guys, but she could not muster the energy or sensitivity to start any romantic relationships. These men were dismissed like puppets after a few weeks, and my brother and I came to believe that our mother would never again find happiness with a man. In an ironic way, my mother was experiencing the female version of what David was experiencing, except her background had taught her to be cautious, and to retreat into a very private world. When David appeared, he was the most unlikely candidate we had seen; a man from another culture, a man who did not speak Spanish, a Jew with what we considered an arrogant extravagant personality, and someone without any knowledge of our past. Initially, David was as far away from the image we had of ourselves, as a Martian.

Thinking he was incompatible with her, she ignored him. When he attempted to buy her gifts, she did not like it, and did not cling on to a “rich man” as many women of lower economic status often do in these situations; instead she dismissed him as a “loco”, or crazy man. A man who got manicures was for us somehow, no matter how masculine the rest of him may have been, a “maricon,” or a homosexual. Just looking at his hands without laughing took some time!

His personality, zest for life, in your face approach and over confidence were foreign to her also, making her suspect that he was attempting to take advantage of her, and her lack of familiarity with American culture. It was only after a year of courtship, resembling an old-fashioned Cuban dating ritual, with family members meeting, children in tow and countless weekends visiting us for coffee and introducing us to Bagels and Lox, that my mother began to accept the idea of a manicured man, and that he truly cared for her, and was sincere in his intentions. The patience exercised by David in order to convince my mother of his honesty was admirable.

After that clumsy first year, David and my mother developed a close relationship, sharing many things. They went into business together, opening a sportswear company appropriately called “Take-Off Sportswear, Inc.” where she designed the line, they traveled around Europe and the Orient, influenced each other’s taste in food, art and fashion, and acted as husband and wife. In spite of her broken English, they communicated very well. By the third year of the relationship, my mother was wearing Adolfo, Oscar de la Renta, had a collection of Louis Vuitton bags, sported an Omega watch, and looked very much the part of a New York “Garmenta.” For weekend getaways, David would pick up my mother early Saturday; they’d fly out of Flushing Airport in his Twin Bonanza and land in Portland Maine for a Lobster lunch. Then, in the afternoon they’d take off again and head out to Niagara Falls for a late dinner by the waterfalls. David liked the beach, and during the summers he enjoyed visiting Cape May, the Hampton’s, Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, Cape Cod and Newport, Rhode Island. As a pilot, sometimes he would visit all of these destinations during a single weekend! So, it was not unusual for me to ask my mother where they had gone for the weekend, only to receive an answer that included multiple locations hundreds of miles apart.

David was a great analyzer of people. He analyzed new acquaintances on multiple levels. First it was race, then religion, then education, then political affiliation, then place where you lived, then your mate and finally, but perhaps most importantly to him, the value of what you wore. Upon coming into contact with a possible business associate or social contact, the person’s “value of dress” was quietly calculated in his mind. For example, someone would introduce David to a stranger: “David this is Sam Smith. Sam is with Acme, Inc.” As David shook the mans’ hand his brain was calculating: Bostonian Shoes $98.00, Macy’s men’s shop cotton/poly dress shirt $22.00, Barneys New York wool gabardine two piece suit $249.00, Guy LaRoche silk tie $12.00, non descript basic haircut $8.00, 14 carat wedding ring $150.00, generic briefcase $69.00, Bulova sports watch $120.00, plus another $15.00 for underwear, socks and tee shirt – Total $743.00. For people who respond to this type of hierarchical social and business structure, as most in the fashion, entertainment, hospitality and advertising industries do, David always ensured that his $4,000 Rolex watch was easily seen during the initial handshake. Ninety percent of the time, after a handshake with David, there was no doubt who was treated as top dog! This he once told me was called the theory of “The Coin Around the Neck.” I knew David and my mother got along well when I noticed that my mother had learned David’s rule of the “Coin around the Neck,” and was also using it with everyone she met. My mother’s optimism, desire to succeed in the United States, and David’s business experience and personality turned out to be a winning match. His adoration for her gave her back some of the confidence she had lost during the divorce, and her “we are temporarily poor, but mentally rich” attitude was able to expand towards a “we may leave this temporary poverty soon” kind of attitude, but she wanted to make sure her relationship with David was a partnership, and not that of a kept woman. As soon as she could, she began to invest in Real Estate, which later turned out to be a very wise thing, providing her with a comfortable retirement in her olden years.

David’s relationship with my brother and I was first cordial and respectful, and eventually informal and close. During the time David and my mother were together, he was the closest thing to a father my brother and I had. When David appeared in our lives I was 20 and my brother was 16. When I ended my job as doorman in Gramercy Park, and I was moving on with my life, David was the closest male role model I had, and after a few bumps he helped me leave the instability of my late teens. Without David, my life would have turned in a very different direction.

When I arrived in Brooklyn College, the born again, smiling and eventually ineffective and incompetent Jimmy Carter was president of the United States. But, as a fledgling Democrat, I highly admired him for his nice smile, and friendly southern way of speaking. Carter told the country we were in a malaise, and America’s best days were behind. A few years prior, another imbecile American president, the clumsy Jerry Ford, told us that there was no Iron Curtain, apparently embracing an Ostrich approach to Geo-politics. As a Cuban exile I looked at the world from a Cold War perspective. The Soviets were waging a war in Afghanistan, and their aggression in Hungary and Czechoslovakia some years before went un-answered by the US. India was controlled by a socialist government, South America was at the verge of an ideological collapse to communism. The Shah of Iran, the most pro-Western ruler in the Middle East had fallen, and most of Central America was at war with the communists, the Sandinistas had taken Nicaragua and other Castro supported rebels were winning everywhere they had gone. The Cuban army was triumphant in Angola, Mozambique, Somalia and the Transvaal, with over 100,000 Cuban soldiers and “internationalist” volunteers actively fomenting “revolution” throughout the third world. The Vietnam War had been lost by the US, and Socialist or outright Communist parties intent on breaking American power in the world governed most of Western Europe. Red China was testing nuclear weapons. Even Mexico, our neighbor to the south was not a democratic country, ruled by a corrupt treacherous one party system that would sell itself to communism at the slightest invitation. The United Nations was enamored with the so-called “non Aligned nations” which was/is anti-American. When I looked at the globe I saw more communism than capitalism, and I saw, with Jimmy Carter’s own admission, that capitalism was in an inevitable retreat. How could I think otherwise, I was a Democrat and a Cuban exile!

And so, I evaluated what had happened in Cuba with most of the professionals in mind, an entire class of people who lost everything due to exile. I looked at the many eastern European acquaintances I knew, and spoke to many Poles, Hungarians, Romanians and Yugoslavs also exiled in the United States, and saw the same thing. The business, intellectual and professional classes of those countries were the first ones to be wiped out by socialism, in essence the ones who made it to exile were the lucky ones. And, I wondered when the United States would itself become communist. The eastern Europeans all expressed a similar opinion, and that was that the United States was doomed unless some supernatural miracle occurred (later the miracle was called Ronald Reagan) to save Capitalism. I looked at the American communists, the honest ones who publicly identified themselves as such, and the huge hidden mass of organizations disguised as religious, civil rights, libertarian, feminist, ethnic and labor, who were/are ideologically communist, and then I added the socialist organizations whose intent is to dismantle capitalism while lying about it, and I gave the United States between ten and fifteen years at the most. What profession will survive communism, I then asked myself, in order to select my major in college, and not find myself as an exile in the future just like my parents, and the countless eastern Europeans I already knew. First, we were exiled from Cuba to the United States because of communism, but when the United States becomes communist; then there will be no place to go! I thought to myself.

I selected City Planning, not because the idea of calculating the garbage output of a city exited me. I selected City Planning as a major in college because it was not related to private enterprise; because it was not related to law, it was not related to government, academia, law enforcement or banking. My field of “communist safe” professions fell in a category that dealt with “technical and planning” fields, the areas a centrally planned command economy needs the most, and values the most. In communism, technicians and planners are at the heart of the gargantuan bureaucracy. Well-trained technicians and planners are more important than doctors. In a society where laws are decreed and the party decides the outcome of judicial and legal questions, planners are more important than lawyers. In a society where there are no rich people, and the resources are controlled by the state, with no private property, planners are more important than bankers or financiers. In a society where a small oligarchy of political ideologues makes all the decisions based on impersonal statistics and projections, the planner is high on the totem pole! So, although my interests were history, law and business, I focused on City Planning and after a short period, I enjoyed it very much, somehow mixing in those other subjects into my core classes in order to find enjoyment and satisfaction. I am the only person I know that chose his college major based on the Geo-political considerations of the Cold War, a fact that baffles most Americans, and is hard to comprehend years after the end of the Cold War. My decision however is well understood by Eastern Europeans and the first wave of Cuban exiles. Here is another example of the legacy of exile, and the profound impact Fidel Castro and his regime has had on those of us, who even as children left his “socialist paradise.”

During my sophomore year in Brooklyn College, I joined the Vista Volunteer program, and accepted an offer to work in the University Year in Action program, which was linked to the Urban Studies department, and the Pratt Institute Center for Community and Environmental Development. As an Urban Planning major, this was a great fit. I spent a year doing volunteer work in the South Bronx, helping gangs adjust to society, then I spent another year attached to the New York City Planning Commission as a field researcher and community organizer. I did countless surveys to determine why homeless men urinate on the south side of a street, and not on the north side. I studied the benefits derived from planting lettuce in the roofs of abandoned buildings. Wrote proposals to the Ford Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation to get funding to conduct studies on the reasons why inner city children have lower math scores than other children, and why the ratio of working women is much lower in black neighborhoods, than in Hispanic neighborhoods. And, my pride and joy, a comprehensive statistical analysis based on a correct sampling of visitors to the Kings Highway Business strip, using the SPSS analytical software application, determining the ratio and volume of litter accumulated in the streets, during different business hours, and during different holidays. All in all, while I was a Vista volunteer and an Urban Planning major, I must have generated more than 250 pounds worth of research papers, opinion surveys, action plans, policy recommendations, and funding proposals.

Since I was good at studying and analyzing things, and I was Hispanic and liberal and a Democrat, and New York City is an almost 90% liberal Democratic city, with the entire bureaucracy and civil service “fairly selecting” even the lowliest jobs, and I was eager to work for almost nothing, I easily found part time work as a researcher for the New York City Board of Education. My Vista, Pratt and South Bronx credentials left little doubt as to my political affiliations. Wow, what a match, given my history and High School education! And so it was that during the summer of my senior year, I found myself conducting a study to determine why the children of incarcerated fathers, and/or single mothers on public assistance, consistently scored lower on standard tests than other children. The study conducted in Bedford Stuyvesant, with the assistance of the local Community Board, was comprehensive but did not yield politically correct results, or something that could be parlayed into a grant for the Board of Education. After the study was completed, and the findings prepared and presented, I faced the reality of having to think about real work, and the fact that I’d soon be in the real world with bills to pay.

Although, the Vista volunteer program paid a stipend, and the work for the City Planning Commission paid a wage, and the research project for the Board of Education also paid a per diem, the compensation was just enough to pay my basic expenses, sometimes forcing me to ask my mother for help, in order to cover my share of the rent at a railroad flat on Coney Island Avenue, which I shared with another college student. My resume blast and job search prior to graduation resulted in zero offers from all the “logical” places. Nothing at City Planning, nothing at the Mayors Office, nothing at Borough Hall, nothing at any of the City and state departments, and nothing from any of the politicians I had by then so happily courted and for whom I had provided free services during many local elections. Politicians who thought I was either Jewish, because of my name, or Puerto Rican because of my “Hispanic” category check mark, in all the application papers. The only offers that came were for more volunteer work; some short term per diem research work, but no real jobs.

New York politics, then more than now, controlled by liberal Democratic Jews is a funny place, and it wasn’t until years later that I realized how all the real decent paying jobs just happened to land in the laps of my Jewish friends, and the volunteer and per diem garbage projects would land on me. Being a Cuban, and not a Puerto Rican also proved educational, for the Puerto Ricans were beginning to be perceived as a political force, and the New York Cubans were politically insignificant, translating to Cubans having no “political” value, or little chance of getting patronage jobs. Although, in the United States City Planning is promoted as a profession removed from dirty politics, it is not. In a major city, City Planning is highly politicized, and more dependent on old boy networks and back room deals than the public imagines. Operating under the guise of public meetings, open forums and zoning boards, the final analysis boils down to the fact that Planners are the ones called upon to provide “expert technical” recommendations on how millions of dollars are allocated, and rarely, perhaps never, do decisions get made against the “recommendation” of a politically connected Planning Board, with “loyal” members. The legacy of Robert Moses lives on, in spite of Rachel Carson and Lewis Mumford. In many ways a capitalist City Planner is very similar to a communist one, except in capitalism there are some free market pressures no one can ignore.

Finally after more than eight months, two real jobs materialized, one as a Junior Planner in Anchorage Alaska, and another as a trainee for a Texas land developer. President Jimmy Carter’s disastrous economy and gloomy policies, and years of financial mismanagement by New York’s reformed Democrats had brought a reduction in city jobs, and my improper positioning as a politically unconnected Cuban all worked against me. I did not go to Alaska, and Texas did not interest me either. The next three months I spend brooding in a serious depression pondering what my life was going to be like, now that I was a good unemployable numbers cruncher. My choice to be in the public sector, and lack of business training had not prepared me for the private sector, and I knew it; my lack of interest in relocating further limited my chances of finding work in a bad economy. My application to work for the Harris Poll was unanswered, the United Nations was not interested in yet another rookie planner, and my rent payments needed to be paid. I began to contemplate working in a Pizzeria again making dough and pasta at the minimum wage.

“Tomorrow I’m picking you up at 8:30 in the morning. Be ready because we’ll be out all day.” Said David on the phone. Before I could ask what this was about, he hung up. At exactly 8:30 am the next morning Colonel David Tandoff rang my bell and when I stuck my head out the second floor window, to tell him I needed another five minutes, I saw him leaning on his huge black Cadillac, yelling at me. “Move it, move it, we’re already late!”

As soon as I sat in his car, he started. “We’re going to Binghamton. I bet you’ve never been to Binghamton?” Of course I had never been to Binghamton, and he knew it. “So, you’re not making any money,” he said. “I’m going to take you for a ride so you can see how I make money. Is that OK. With you?” “What do you think,” I thought to myself. Like I have something better to do. “Alright, how far is Binghamton?” ‘Three and a half hours with good traffic.” he responded. But, don’t worry we’ll make a few stops along the way!”

Along the way we stopped at an American Indian gift shop, by an Armenian roadside Bakery, a Greek Diner, and a Private Golf Club by a lake, where he proudly pointed out “five years ago they didn’t allow Jews in this place.” Everyone knew him by name, hugged him and exchanged small talk about things that seemed important to them, but completely stupid and silly to me! The back seat of David’s humongous gas guzzling 1976 4 door Cadillac Sedan De Ville had a rack where he hang dozens of women’s dresses, blouses, pants and skirts. Our trip was one of his regular rounds to the New England area where he personally visited clients, in spite of the fact that he had sales people doing this for him. David loved the road and this type of social interaction, and he had it down to a science. He was playing the role of a top notch “road Garmento.” “I’ll take you to Connecticut, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania first, then we’ll go up to Rhode Island and Maine.” “How long will this take?” I asked. “What’s the matter,” you’ve got more important things to do?” “No,” I said. “Well, all I ask is that you watch, and don’t think too much. Trust me, and you’ll get an education, because in college now days they don’t teach how to make money. And, you need to know how to make money! Right?” “Fucking shit. I now have to sit here for hours listening to this fat guy tell me about his life and anything that comes to his head.” I thought, but instead said, “You’re right.” I sank into the seat as I realized how far this day was going to be from the planning, surveys, reports, statistics and meetings I wanted to be doing. After listening to what seemed like a never ending number of Frank Sinatra, Benny Goodman and Luis Armstrong tapes, we stopped for a late lunch somewhere past Bear Mountain, where David explained that his trip was to drum up some business with certain clients that had been “slacking” during the previous quarter, and he thought the slacking had to do with his salesman, or perhaps the new colors in the line. Either way, “showing your face is always good,” he said.

About half an hour from Binghamton, we stopped by a roadside mall, and headed for an upscale clothing store. David instructed me on how to setup the rolling racks and how to hang the line. Then he proceeded to pull the rolling rack, while telling me, “just watch and go along with anything I say.” Upon entering the large store, David started to whisper to me. “Look at that rack over there, that wasn’t here before, its Michael Doral’s stuff. And, that one over there, you see it, the slim dresses in the corner, that’s Sag Harbor, none of this stuff should be here.” I had no idea what he was talking about.

“Harry, Harry come out front, David Tandoff is here.” I heard a woman say. David’s face lit up with a smile, then he responded. “Harry stop redecorating and come out before I run away with Esther!” After giving Esther a hug and a kiss, David continued, “Hello sweetheart, how’s business?” Coming out from the back of the store, Harry responded for Esther, “it’s been lousy. Look at that floor, I’m overstocked and I’m not ready for spring.” Looking at the floor, David asked, “How’s the Michael Doral selling?” “Not moving,” said Harry. And, the Sag Harbor, is that part of their regular line, or is it their latest promotional?” Asked David. “Promotional? Hell no. Irving Greenberg, you know Irving, he gave us a 20% discount and promised to throw some promo money, but it hasn’t happened yet.” “But,” asked David, “is the stuff moving?” “No.” Said Harry. “Well,” said David, “ I thought that stuff would be flying out of here.” Then changing his tone, he asked, “What ever happened to Muriel Schotz from Binghamton, is she still married to old Abe?” Harry and Esther started to laugh, “you didn’t hear what happened? Old Abe went to New York, and when he returned he found her screwing one of the warehouse guys in the back of the store. We all knew what she was up to, but for years he put a blind eye to it. She left him and now lives in Elmira with another guy.” After about thirty minutes of gossip, laugher and coffee, during which David introduced me as his “helper,” without yet showing his new line, he said “I want you to send back the Sag Harbor and Doral lines, because I’ve got something that’s been selling well and will knock your socks off.” “David we can’t do that.” Said Esther. “You just look at what I have to show you, then you can ague with me!” David signaled me to unzip the rolling rack, and then he pulled out an ensemble and said, “Macy’s New York sold 18,000 pieces last month. No one up here has it. Give me a price?” Baffled, Harry scratched his head and said, “David my budget is dried up.” “Come on give me a price.” “$12.99” said Esther. “Close,” said David. “Now, check this one out,” pulling a beautiful linen dress, “What about this one? You see the stitch. This is Irish linen, look at the count.” Moving to the rack David began to take out his entire line, hanging the garments so the colors (I assumed, because of my color blindness) could be appreciated, and then he said. ”Look at these colors, now look at the Sag Harbor colors, and tell me what you see?” “I like these colors much better,” said Esther. “Now look at the Michael Doral colors.” “It’s a much duller palate she said.” “You see the same things your customers see. Over there a dull line. Over here energy and excitement. Why would they buy those, if they could buy these?”

When we walked out the door, David had managed to convince Harry and Esther to return the entire Michael Doral and Sag Harbor collections, in favor of his. He had sketched out a floor plan and display area for Harry to use when the new merchandise arrived, and had taken a $5,000 deposit on an $18,000 order, deliverable in 15 days. As we got back in the car, David told me he knew Muriel was a nympho maniac because every road salesman in the territory had been banging her for the last ten years. Then he asked, “Did you think I was going to make that sale?” “No, I thought you were just making small talk with them, because they told you they had spent all their money, and you just didn’t want to rudely walk out!” He looked at me, and said, “lesson number one in making money. Making money is all a lot of bullshit. Watch me and learn to bullshit and you’ll make money.” I thought to myself, “this guy is crazy! Making money requires intellect, complex negotiations, making products from raw materials, sweat and tears, legal agreements, financial instruments, and effort in convincing clients to part with their money. This man is a joke.” “What about the colors, do you like my colors better?” he asked me. “I’m color blind remember.” “Well, according to my fashion designer our colors are not exactly in tune with the current trends, but that’s how I want it. This season’s dull palate probably turns off half the market, so by having a slightly different tone, I become the choice for those who wont buy the new color trend.” “The problem,” he continued, “is that the sales people don’t know how to sell this strategy!” “But, suppose that the problem is not due to colors, but to people not buying because they have no money?” I said. “My job is to solve that problem, by selling the store my product.” He concluded. This answer was completely nuts I thought.

I traveled with David for about three and a half months, and saw the Harry and Esther scene play itself out time after time. “No David, we have no money to spend,” came out of the clients’ mouths, and entered David’s ears as, “show us what you’ve got, so we can buy!” In three months David closed more than $470,000 dollars worth of business in this manner. But, I was not ready to comprehend his lessons. Making money has to be hard, I believed. School, the liberal ideology about distribution of wealth, the poor masses exploited by industrialism, the monsters controlling capital in the banking sector, Jimmy Carter’s “malaise”, the old boy network, the ethnic prejudices, etc, etc, all pointed at how incredibly hard and depressing, and nerve wrecking it was to make money. But for David Tandoff, making money was all bullshit! He simply went to those who had money and convinced them to give him some, in exchange for something as silly as women’s clothes. No fancy reports, no statistical models and no overhead presentations. When he ran out of pre-printed invoices, he hand wrote the orders on scrap paper!

“You can do this.” He said to me after a couple of months and thousands of miles traveled. “But, I’m color blind, I tamely said.” “Leave that to me,” said David. After a little bit of thought, he said he had the answer, and it was textiles. “Expensive novelty textiles. Sell fabrics, because with fabrics you can sell using color-coded swatches, and the colors are prepared for you by color specialists. All you have to do is present them, and take orders.” David looked at me as if this was the simplest thing in the world. “You can do it, he said. An idiot can sell fabrics. Well, you’re going to have to learn about weaving, fiber counts, dyeing processes, finishing, mills, knitting and your competitors. Tomorrow I’ll get you started!” Damn, I thought, this is all Japanese. He makes it sound easy, but he’s got twenty five years of experience, and I have none!”

The next morning I drove in to New York with David, and found that he had lined up four consecutive appointments with the largest textile mills in the United States, so I could meet his friends and start learning about the fabrics business. At Burlington Industries, Alamac, Cone Mills and Millican, we met what I later realized were typical fabric professionals, who are different from typical “Garmentos.” My entire day was spent talking about fabrics. David’s optimism simplified what is really a complex and, esoteric profession. Textiles are part of a science that needs years of study to properly master. There are infinite varieties of fibers, colors, weaving combinations, textures, weights, strengths and costs that must be considered when making fabrics. A good salesman must know these things well in order to be successful. We are talking about the sale of hundreds of thousands of yards, not a few dozen yards. So, the best way to start is to pick a niche and attempt to break in, while you gain an education and move up the ladder.

While I was considering whether to go into the textile business, leaving City Planning in stillbirth, I accidentally met an old friend from Erasmus Hall High School, who had decided not to go to college, and had gone into the fashion industry instead. Gabriel Bouza was a Moroccan Jew who during the time I was in Brooklyn College went and made a fortune first selling sportswear, and then setting up his own shop on Broadway. Gabriel drove me to his $500,000 home in Long Island on his new Mercedes Benz, and basically told me he thought he wasn’t cut out for college, and he had gotten in the fashion industry because he couldn’t get hired anywhere else. Gabriel’s story of success was a variation of what I had heard and seen from David. Businessmen do not need to be brain surgeons. Successful businessmen in the fashion industry need to keep it simple, but be extravagant and extroverted. I had what it took, and more, except I was never able to master the extravagant part, and that hurt me.

Two weeks later, and after many practice interviews with David, I bluffed my way into a job as representative for a European textile consortium, selling to the New York trade. Exactly as David had described, it was almost a sell by the numbers job. I sold expensive European novelty fabrics to American designers who after purchasing them sent the swatches to Hong Kong to have them copied at one-tenth the cost of the originals. For me this was good, because it kept me busy with lots of small orders, and sampling, allowing for decent commissions, but it was not very good for the Europeans who dealt with the logistics of a barrage of small transatlantic orders that never materialized into large production orders. I enrolled at the Fashion Institute of Technology’s textile science certificate program, knowing that I would not finish it, but with the intent however of learning as much as possible about the business. Acetate smells like fish when burned. Sunlight destroys the color fastness of most organic fibers. Three hundred pounds per square inch of pressure is too much for even the hardest canvass. A four by four weave is usually the cheapest fabric. Pima cotton is very different than Egyptian. Alpaca has a caloric value lower than Merino, but Cashmere is higher than Merino. Synthetic Blue is close in tone to an Indian Indigo, but the Indigo is usually ten times more expensive. Silk is stronger than polyester. Women’s stockings are made in a circular knitting machine. A 40-inch roll selling for $1.45 a yard is more expensive than a 55-inch roll selling for $1.85. Last season’s colors are usually discounted at 40%, and last years colors are as good as junk. Selling fabric for a small salary and a commission when the American market was still a domestic industry in need of European samples was not bad.

I quickly learned that American designers are almost all copiers, with little creativity of their own. The biggest copiers are often the most renown names. Americans copy from the Europeans, everything down to the last fiber and zipper, then they look for ways to manufacture at a low cost, in order to maximize profits. A $250.00 Paris skirt, gets “translated for the American market” and ends up in Macy’s for $49.00. Constant trips to Europe, the purchase of expensive photo albums, sketch books and color “guidance” books, with samples, and sit down consultations with “fashion consultants” keep the American designers “in tune” with the trends. Because of this dependence on Europe, European “market intelligence” is very important. After about a year of studying and selling European textiles, mostly French and Italian, I felt more comfortable with the industry in general, and when I was offered a job by a textile fashion service, the equivalent of a professional cheating service for textile designers, I took it. The company took care of the hard work, designing from European inspirations dozens of unique fabric and knitted patterns. These were sold as technical books with all the needed information to setup the production mills which would then roll out the fabric under the name of what ever company or designer wanted to take credit for the then “proprietary” design. This service allowed dozens of so called “designers” to wallow in the beach, snort cocaine, or spend the afternoons in tanning salons, while they took credit for creating just “fabulous and fantastic” winning fabrics.

Although, I was nowhere near my friend Gabriel in compensation, I was making money, and the days of Vista, Pratt, and the South Bronx seemed far. The idea of surveys to find out about human pissing patterns was put in its proper context, as a stupidity I was glad to leave behind. The entire Cold War fear of America collapsing under communism began to take a surreal feel to it. If capitalism were to collapse then I’d deal with it when it came. Like the Polacks who emigrated to Cuba in the late 1940’s after Poland became communist, only to be chased out of Cuba again in the early 1960’s because Cuba had also become communist. Sometimes you have to go with the flow, sometimes things are much bigger than you can handle. My intellectual attraction to complicated theories, statistical models to answer simple questions, projections, plans, legal inclinations, and financial models with what if scenarios were all fine, and perhaps in the future would mean something, but in the fashion industry Dumb was OK. Everyone around me who was making big money was basically intellectually challenged. Like in my High School days, I noticed the rewards were not going to those who worked hard, but those who played the system. Soon I noticed what the system was.

The fashion industry was divided into three stratas, like a layered cake. The Jews on the top who pulled the strings and controlled everything, along with a few WASP’s who remained from the old days. The Italians who worked the creative jobs, and some production, and then the rest who comprised a large group reflective of all the ethnic groups in the city, minus the blacks. Blacks rarely worked the industry outside some warehouse and showroom cleaning positions. China Town did local production in downtown sweatshops, with scattered but tiny “sewing rooms” in Queens and the Washington Heights area worked by Puerto Rican’s and some Cubans. There was no Asian overseas production of any significance outside Hong Kong, and anything made in Korea or India was considered “schlock” or poor quality stuff. Mainland China was off limits. Hispanics where a few notches above the blacks in this pecking order, but never as high as the Italians. Each group guarded its position with care, with the Italians famous for aggressively “dissuading” others from infringing on their creative jobs. The corporate structure of a fashion company usually looked like this: Jewish partners run company. Italian designer, pattern maker and assistant designer. Polish or Eastern European head seamstress, Hispanic sewers and shipping clerks, Jewish salesmen and bookkeepers. The Fashion media and retail buying offices were also all Jewish, with the top positions at the garment and textile Labor Unions all in Jewish hands. It was rare for example to find an Italian in a sales position, or a Jew as a pattern maker!

I remember there were no Hispanic designers, aside from Oscar de la Renta, Adolfo, and Carolina Herrera, and one day I mentioned to a Jewish friend, that in the 20th century the greatest artist, Pablo Picasso, and the greatest fashion designer, Cristobal Valenciaga were both Spanish, and there was no lack of creative Hispanics capable of working as designers. “How come there are none in the industry?” His response was “not on 7th Avenue.” To some, it seemed that the memory of the Inquisition was still fresh. It was fine to complain about how years before Jews were not allowed to enter certain places, or play Golf in WASP only country clubs, and it was also OK to keep Hispanics from entering “their” fashion industry! I was “in” because I had a powerful godfather in Colonel David Tandoff. A good ninety percent of these Jews were also liberal Democrats, my buddies at the time.

So, after a while I got the feeling that one other requisite not mentioned to me by David, or Gabriel was that in a Jewish controlled industry, Jewishness was as important to success as product knowledge, extroversion and extravagance. When the Indians and Chinese broke the walls of Jerusalem in New York’s fashion industry, I thought it was a miracle. It only took the combined power of two of the world’s most populous countries with more than three billion people to do it, and this was only achieved in the late 1990’s. If you want to study the monopolistic impact of a particular group’s hold on an industry, study 7th Avenue and the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. Together, they danced and are still dancing to a most corrupt music.

From the textile industry I eventually moved on to garments when the Indians began to make inroads in the early 1980’s and non-Jews had an opening in the major leagues. Not interested in displaying Rolex watches, wearing trophy gold chains, treating clients to cocaine, and dressing like a “Garmento,” or an effeminate Hispanic, (for which there was plenty of demand) in an industry well known for “decadence,” I was always at the periphery of things. When the Rolexes were flashed at me, the gold chains dangled, and the discussions about hanging out in the Hampton’s came up, I was un-impressed. I actually hated it, having seen David play the game so well, I knew it was all a very sophisticated strategy to place me in a pecking order, very much like a pack of dogs, where the Alpha dog gets all other dogs to roll over whenever he howls. As a Cuban exile, and with my family history, “I’d rather starve to death than roll over for some snot nosed imbecile half educated Garmento,” I used to say to myself. I was therefore not plugged in to the in-crowd. I tried doing business in a “wholesome” way; as a result I did not make the big bucks. I dressed as a preppy, with a few “blues Brother’s” suits, good quality but simple L.L. Bean Penny Loafer shoes, always in a button down shirt and classic tie, a decent Seiko watch and that was it. I avoided the flashy labels and “personal trophies” everyone wore. Noticing the use of David’s “Coin around the Neck” process being used on me was interesting, especially when the other party expected me to kiss their ass, and I did not.

I learned a great deal from David, and made a transition to the private sector thanks to him. Many of his lessons were on target, many where things that did not translate well outside the fashion industry, some were leftovers he carried from 1930’s Bensonhurst, which by the 1980’s were completely crazy. I also learned that it’s OK to appreciate a person for their good qualities, while understanding and criticizing their bad ones. At the same time that David, one of the best Jewish persons I’ve ever befriended, was educating me about the fashion industry, I was seeing how unfair and often corrupt the Jews were in that same industry. And, I say “Jews” as a category, because that is exactly how the majority acted, as a very tight self-centered group. I have never met a Jew to this day that admits to the negative aspects involved in their almost total control of the fashion industry. Simply because they profited imensily from the arrangement. It seems that all groups, Cubans included of course, just want to be told how good and benevolent they are. If you criticize, you are anti-Semitic, or anti-Cuban. This of course brings questions about the whole American concept of the Melting Pot. In my opinion there has never been a Melting Pot, but theoretically it would be nice if there was one. Each group in America takes care of its own, and when there are leftovers, then those are shared. Of course, there are lots of gray areas, like the one I myself inhabited.

My transition to the fashion industry was a big break with the past. I left behind a lot of my big fears of communism, which had influenced many of my important and mundane decisions, and for better or worse are still impacting my life. For, had I not been a Cuban exile with the ghost of Fidel Castro chasing me, I would have gone directly to business school or law school, something I later contemplated doing for over ten years. But, in retrospect, not finding work after college was a good thing. Had I found a job as a City Planner, I would perhaps still be studying why Bums pee where they do, I would probably be a loyal dog to the New York liberal Democratic machine, and I would not have had the opportunities that later came to me in the business world. However, the break was bumpy, and the transition took me to many places, and gave me lots of surprises. In many, many ways, the real world for me began on New York's seventh avenue.

In 1982 I met a client that eventually became my wife, and the mother of our two children. An Italian fashion designer. In 1984 we honeymooned in Paris, Florence and Barcelona. When we returned from our Honeymoon, we set up house in an apartment located of all places, in Gramercy Park. What an interesting voyage, how far from Cuba!

In 1986 my wife and I started a sportswear company with an Indian manufacturer as partner. We took the company from zero to seven million dollars in a year and a half, after which we suffered the impact of a sudden huge import restriction (Quota) imposed on Indian cottons, forcing our Indian partner into bankruptcy, leading later to the collapse of our business, as quickly as it flourished. As a young married couple we experienced extreme success, followed by extreme financial disaster. I left the fashion industry disappointed and seeking to diversify our family’s means of survival. After seven years in the fashion industry, I had enough. My next stop would be somewhere else. Somewhere that was connected to City Planning, but in the private sector and away from politicians and Rolex watches. And, that job led me to technology, which eventually became my love and the start of a life as a “Nerd” and high tech pioneer. Like my father, I am a tinkerer and an entrepreneur.

My mother and David parted ways after nine years as friends, lovers and business partners. In the end she could not marry him. I don’t believe it was because she did not love him, but because she concluded that she did not want to be “under the control” of a man. I believe the Cuba baggage, and the divorce from my father made her into a rebel, and although David was a liberal man, he was still a product of his generation, with certain expectations. When he realized there was not going to be a marriage, he was heart broken, tried everything in the book to change her mind, and then he pulled back and disappeared for a year. When he re-appeared, it was as a platonic friend who called once in a while and during holidays to wish us well. When he died in the late 1990’s, my brother and I cried. I miss him. But, I have never developed an ear for Frank Sinatra, his favorite singer.

(c) Copyright by Joel Font
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